Teach Them Well

Thursday, November 9, 2023

O my people, listen to my instructions.  Open your ears to what I am saying, for I will speak to you in a parable.  I will teach you hidden lessons from our past—stories we have heard and known, stories our ancestors handed down to us.  We will not hide these truths from our children; we will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the Lord, about his power and his mighty wonders.  For he issued his laws to Jacob; he gave his instructions to Israel.  He commanded our ancestors to teach them to their children, so the next generation might know them—even the children not yet born—and they in turn will teach their own children.  So each generation should set its hope anew on God, not forgetting his glorious miracles and obeying his commands.  Psalm 78:1-7

If children are not taught well the lessons of how God’s Word is to be obeyed, we have no hope of having a sane, kind, and sustainable world.

In an age when everything must have an immediate solution, there is little hope of a “viral” response to this text.  Still, this text contains the ultimate solution to the madness that envelopes the 21^st century culture…to wit:  If children are not taught well the lessons of how God’s Word is to be obeyed, we have no hope of having a sane, kind, and sustainable world.

The Psalmist said it clearly, that if we forget God’s sovereign power (shown in His miracles and creation) complete generations of humans will cease to know God, and will therefore, set their hope on possessions and selfish ambitions.  I cannot think of a better characterization of what is happening in our world.  In my lifetime I have watched the disappearing act in churches, and the accompanying disregarding of fearing God (in the sense of honoring He who created and sustains us):

Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.  He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth.  He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see—such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.  Everything was created through him and for him.  He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.  Colossians 1:15-17

Putting this all together:  

     1.    God, through Jesus, the Christ, created everything, including all humanity, and keeps it going every second of every millennium, and is therefore the owner of all of it…and us.

     2.    He has given it all as a gift, sealed by the promise of His Spirit, the result of the blood of His Son, Jesus shed on Calvary’s tree.

3.    That requires a response of respect and reverence for He who owns us, loves us, empowers us, and sets us free to live creative, constructive, kind, and loving lives.

     4.    That shows up in many ways; the first (and foremost) of which is worship!

     5.    We are increasingly doing a pitiful job of that response

     6.    The way to reverse it is for families to return to a priority of worship, Bible study, and prayer, so that the children in those families will learn how to really live.

For You Today 

What I have shared is not new, nor is it flashy.  It’s not likely to make any headlines, and it’s not a single app you can get on Google, where you can hit the button and solve all your problems.  Rather, it’s a mindset, a worldview, a plain distillation of what Scripture covers from Genesis to Revelation – humankind’s responsibility to worship God all the days we live, and do whatever’s necessary to pass-along the faith to that next generation. 

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,600 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road library.

Today’s title Image from Pixabay.com  

Images without citation are in public domain or cited via weblinks.  

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©   

Cradle to Grave - Part 2

 

Wednesday, November 16, 2022

All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives.  It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.  

2 Timothy 3:16

Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.  He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth.  He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see—such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.  Everything was created through him and for him.  He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.  Colossians 1:15-17

I’m aware, with the next few sentences, I will offend some people, as well as get a few ”amens”.  However, like Martin Luther, when asked to recant his condemnation of a church gone dark into selfishness and spiritual death:  I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen.  So, here goes:  Abortion is a wrong choice.  ---  Click!  ---  Half of those who heard that just tuned-out.  For those with an open mind still reading/listening, I did not make a sexist/mysogynistic statement.  I didn’t even mention sex or gender.  Abortion is a medical procedure assaulting a living being inside a woman’s body with the intent to cause death. 

My reason for writing this is to address the faulty reasoning for making the decision to abort a living being.  The primary case that has been made for abortion as an acceptable choice has always appealed to women’s rights.  Certainly that presupposes only the rights of the woman carrying the unborn child, and not the rights of the child within the womb.  My argument is not against women, or rights, however, rather a contention with unsound logic.

In yesterday’s devotion I held up two principles – Scripture is authoritive in matters of my life, and Jesus is the only arbiter of my actions, because He is the center of Scripture’s content and purpose of Almighty God.  With that as my marching orders, the only honest and objective conclusion about abortion is that it violates every tenet of Scripture’s profile of life.

The point is, if God thought enough to create us in the first place, and clearly stated that every life is valuable – even the sparrows – as much as even the hairs on your head, arbitrarily snuffing-out a life for the sake of convenience is wrong.

The hermeneutical principles of interpreting Scripture demand that no Scripture contradicts another Scripture.  There may be contrasts, such as describing one side of an elephant, then turning to the trunk or tail with a differing description, but the elephant is one cohesive being.  And the elephant of Scripture is God’s cohesive treatise on life.  All else, save protecting life, fails…eternally!  Note the contrast in Jesus’ own words, from the passage where He describes himself as the Good Shepherd, and what God’s purpose was for sending Him:

The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.  John 10:10

If life is the supreme good which God was engifting to all humanity, the enemy’s purpose…in this discussion, abortion, is a declaration of war.

For You Today  

I’ve stated the position I hold…or rather I see that God holds, and I cannot do less than affirm.  Tomorrow we will consider the sexist issue.  Stay tuned.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

       Small Package - Big Message   and   Eyes that do Not See; Ears that do Not Hear

Images: Title image Pixabay.com Images without citation are either personal property of the author, or in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

Cradle to Grave - Part 1

Tuesday, November 15, 2022

All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives.  It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.  

2 Timothy 3:16

Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.  He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth.  He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see—such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.  Everything was created through him and for him.  He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.  Colossians 1:15-17

These two passages are the ruler by which I measure all my thoughts and deeds.  Paul’s admonition to Timothy reminded the young Pastor that Scripture would keep a person on the right track, an informed, humble allegiance to God.  Paul’s letter to the Colossian believers outlines the primacy and supremacy of Jesus Christ, the One who created, sustains, and has prior claim, on everything.

Scripture is entirely focused on God’s Messiah, Jesus the Christ, from Genesis through Revelation.  That is His clearly-stated declaration in Revelation:

“I am the Alpha and the Omega—the beginning and the end,” says the Lord God. “I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come—the Almighty One.”  Revelation 1:8

It doesn’t get clearer than that.  And with that clarity, we are left with two choices, we can believe, or not.  Because we are given free will, Heaven hangs in the balance of the choice to serve Him; rejecting makes Hell the alternative.

At the risk of being redundant, I want to point out that God has given each of us free will to choose, and with that responsibility we are also blessed (or cursed) by the choices we make.  Isn’t that ever the way?  If you decide to put your hand in the fire, there are scorching consequences.  If you decide to feed a hungry child, nothing that ever happens can take away the inner peace that you did the right thing.  Choose poorly and you can’t forget it; choose wisely and you sleep well.

As a young person I chose to serve God by trusting in Christ’s sacrifice for my sin.  Although there have been some very difficult times in my life, I have never regretted that decision.  I have made some poor choices at times, and the consequences have been correctional in nature, with God getting my attention, showing me my errors, and how to get back on track.  (Sometimes, depending upon my stubbornness factored-in, it took a little longer than necessary).  However, the two principles I chose to follow, God’s Scripture is true, profitable, and without error, and…Jesus Christ is the embodiment of Scripture, and I will honor him with all my words and deeds...these principles have never failed to bless, comfort, strengthen, and enlighten me for more than the past 60 years. 

So, this is my introduction to what I would like to say about choosing life over death from cradle to grave.  My hope is that you’ll stay with me the next two or three days as we comb-out a few bed-head-hairs of misconception about choice.

For You Today  

If you are ready to choose to believe Scripture, and honor Christ in all you do, here is what God’s Word says about making that decision:

If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved.  Romans 10:9-10

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

       Life Off-Track   and   Choosing; and being able to live with the Choices

Images: Title image Pixabay.com Images without citation are either personal property of the author, or in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

 

Let There Be...

 

Tuesday, March 2, 2021

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters.  And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.  Genesis 1:1-2
By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen.  Hebrews 11:3

I can’t remember when I first heard it, but the old sermon illustration about the creation and God’s powerful hand has stuck in my mind for decades.  It is about an old-time country preacher attempting to tell his flock about what God did to bring about everything we can see.  Having stood with Bible opened to the first chapter of Genesis he read the first two verses of Scripture, and completed his sermon in three short sentences:

In da’ beginnin’ they weren’t nuthin’.

An’ God, He reached out his’n hand, an’ cotched him a bit o’ da’ nuthin.

An’ wit da’ bit o’ nuthin’ God made somethin’…ever’thin’!

I fail to see how you can improve on that kind of preaching.

There are certain Scripture verses that stand out in my mind as formative for sound Christian doctrine of how, and why God created the universe.  These not only answer the darkness of our beginnings, but the purpose for why we exist.

Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.  He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth.  He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see—such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.  Everything was created through him and for him.  He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together. Colossians 1:15-17

In the beginning the Word already existed.  The Word was with God, and the Word was God….So the Word became human and made his home among us.  He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.  John 1:1, 14

The debate on how the universe started, and how it came to be the kind of place it is, extends back generations…all of them.  The debate began in the Garden of Eden when the serpent cast doubt in Eve’s mind about whether God really said to leave the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil alone.  That question got to Eve.  She tried to defend God and said that the Lord had said to not even touch it.  This was going beyond what God had told them; God told them that in the day they ate of that tree’s fruit they would die.  With one simple question Satan muddied the waters of God’s clear teaching for humans on living a life of faith in God’s way.  And we have been stirring that mudhole ever since![1]

For Adam and Eve, and for every descendant of theirs, the whole issue has been one of faith.  We humans have a hard time taking things on faith, believing what we have not seen.  Yet, with a God whom no living person has ever seen, this is the chief requirement – that we take God’s word for our marching orders.  And, despite how small and insignificant each of us might appear, compared to, let’s say, the universe, taking God’s existence, sovereignty, and plans for us on faith is, to put it softly, putting every egg we have in this faith basket. 

And therefore we call it a leap of faith.  Believing in God is a choice which He has given us as one of those eggs in our basket.  You either believe-in, trust-in, and rely-on God…or you don’t.  The choice is entirely up to us.

For You Today

If you’ve never taken that “faith-leap” what you’ve been sensing as the missing piece in your life’s puzzle is the assurance that there is God, and He’s good, and He loves you.  That’s what’s on the other side of that nervous step of letting-go, and letting-God.  Today can be that one pivotal moment in your life. 

Trust in God.  Choose to place your faith in God’s only Son who died in your place.  He created you, and everything you can see, and everything beyond your sight.  Trust that he knows your every need.  You’ll find He’s waiting for you with open arms.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com    Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

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[1] Read this account in Genesis 3:1-13

When the Storm Rages

 

Friday, October 30, 2020

As evening came, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let’s cross to the other side of the lake.”  So they took Jesus in the boat and started out, leaving the crowds behind (although other boats followed).  But soon a fierce storm came up. High waves were breaking into the boat, and it began to fill with water.  Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion.  The disciples woke him up, shouting, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?”  When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Silence!  Be still!”  Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm.  Then he asked them, “Why are you afraid?  Do you still have no faith?”  Mark 4:35-40

It almost seems frightening to address the subject of plugging-in to God Almighty, and His power.  It’s one thing to talk about the awesome God Who created the universe and holds it all in the palm of His hand;[1] it’s quite another to contemplate standing near that kind of power, or have that powerful presence turning your life upside down.  Think Jesus, in the middle of your boat…the storm is raging…and Jesus caused it…and then He speaks to it and it hushes up.  I’ve been more comfortable around bare wires connected to a 220-volt line.

God's creative power is such that even the smallest thing takes on new significance when we consider His work.  Take bacteria, for instance.  Some bacteria divide every 20 minutes.  If just one of these microscopic blobs could get enough food, and dispose of its waste, it could, theoretically, in just 48 hours, grow to a size 4,000 times the size of Earth!  If God could put that kind of potential in a single bacteria cell, there isn’t anything we can imagine more powerful.

When Jesus came to the boat in that dark hour, when His disciples were struggling against the raging storm, He simply said, it is I, don’t be afraid.  Then he looked at the wind and said, Hush.  It takes power to do that!  And the words translated It is I, in the language of the ancient Scriptures, are ego emi, I AM.  Any questions about the source of that power? 

For You Today

In the midst of life's storms, go to God..He is your source, He is certain, He is secure, and He is willing to share with you, if you will pass it on to others.

He said so …and He did so!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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Title image: James Tissot, Brooklyn Museum via WikimediaComons   W   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

For other posts on Mark 4 see:  Holy Mixtures - Part 3 and Listening to the Light

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[1] Isaiah 40:12 says that God, Creator measured off the heavens with the “span” (the width of a person’s palm)  Colossians 1:15-17 has Jesus as that Creator, holding it all together

 

Lenten Walk - Part 24

[1]

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

This is what the Lord says—Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies:  “I am the First and the Last; there is no other God.  Who is like me?  Let him step forward and prove to you his power.  Let him do as I have done since ancient times when I established a people and explained its future.  Do not tremble; do not be afraid.  Did I not proclaim my purposes for you long ago?  You are my witnesses—is there any other God?  No! There is no other Rock—not one!”  

Isaiah 44:6-8^(NLT)

Three times[2] in the book that bears Isaiah’s name Almighty God delclares that He alone is first and last.  As an echo we hear the same phrase three times[3] in John’s Revelation, the final time near the very end of Scripture:

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”  

Revelation 22:13^(NLT)

There are several significant attachments to this phrase, all of them so important to our theology…why and what we believe about God.  He is first and last in the sense that He is the Creator, but also sustainer.  He was before and He holds it all together, and will be there to restore His creation to glory at the end of time.  Paul gives us this synopsis:

Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.  He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth.  He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see—such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.  Everything was created through him and for him.  He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.  

Colossians 1:15-17^(NLT)

Another significance of this phrase first and last is the idea of preeminence; God was not only the first in the sense of time, but also in the matter of imporance.  As Isaiah records, God isn’t just the most important among all the gods you might hear about; Jehovah is the ONLY God.

One other thought about first and last, which sums up why we can hardly claim we comprehend the vastness of the nature and character of this unseen eternal One, is that He is before time and space, and exists above that realm in which we humans dwell.  As such, God knows the beginnings and endings of all things.  It is like our universe is one very long parade, and God has a drone’s perspective of the banners at the beginning of the parade, and the sweepers after the procession…all at the same time.

For You Today

Lent is that dark time inbetween. 

It is when we turn a corner from Jesus demonstrating his power over what He created, magnificent miracles and heartening sermons…to the shadow of a cross.  In this 40 days of wandering in the wilderness of inbetween, it is important to remember that we are within time and space.  We cannot yet comprehend what life is like above this realm…we can only imagine, as John wrote:

Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears.  But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is.  

1 John 3:2^(NLT)

This Lenten promise reminds us that He not only was first, creating and breathing life into us; God is also the last, standing ready to extend that life with Him in eternity. 

In Lent…inbetween…it is enough to know that we will know!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com

[2] Isaiah 41:4, 44:6, 48:12

[3] Revelation 1:17, 2:8, 22:13